This month began with many doubts and personal issues, following a euphoric period over the holidays, it all seemed to be washing away again. Drifting out with the tide, I slipped into a malaise of depression, that started to fade away going into the second week of the month. Then just before bed in the early morning of January 12th I read something, something I didn’t want to believe; something that left me sleepless: Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide.

It was a hard blow. It knocked me back, back into the malaise, back into thinking and rethinking the same thoughts. Instinctively, I knew it was likely the immense stress from the case that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. And yet, I wondered why? In my processing I wrote down two unfinished thoughts.

Successful Men

What is it like for the lives of men who sit idly by as time passes and watch as successful men struggle with failure? What is a successful man’s failure; to not have done more, to have done too much that wasn’t of import, to not know when he has done enough? Where does the successful man draw his line, or does he simply forget that there eventually needs to be a firm line? A line that he doesn’t have to keep punting, further away.

Stones and Metal

It is a triumph of history that we can look back millennia because of how our predecessors constructed their tools. Unlike the tools of today, that will likely fade almost as quickly as they came to be, stone and metal still stands only gently worn or hidden by the world around it. The only chances that we have of continued existence, at the millennial scale, is in our architecture and our cultures. Change has begun to progress at such a pace, even while it may feel glacial to us, that we are outstripping our own history in decades. There will be few who stand out in the test of time.

And here it is the end of the month, and another person’s gone who was out to change the world. I can’t comment personally on Jody Sherman, as I had never heard of him until just the other day. From the stories from his friends, he was a  “successful man” and I’m sure he’ll stand out in the test of time, not in one piece but little bits of him will survive in memories.

I just feel empty and tired. The past month, the whole of the year, has just been rough; every time I seem to get up, something comes and throws me back down. Maybe it’s time to make some changes. Time to find some balance. But I don’t know, this whole month can just be chalked up to unfinished thoughts.